Report From The Vice Chairman - Storage Networking Industry Association - Industry Trend or Event

Computer Technology Review, Sept, 1999 by Roger Reich

It's the great experiment. Every major industry has an association of manufacturers that works to expand the market by promoting its wares--"Got Milk." The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA), in addition to being a marketing and promotion engine, for the first time is bringing competing manufacturers together to jointly engineer a milk that tastes better. The Holy Grail of this engineering effort is the desire to make products from multiple Storage Network vendors interoperate reliably. Should the industry be able to provide plug compatibility, an IT consumer would be free to select any product (hardware or software) from any manufacturer, allowing them to optimize price, function, reliability, performance, serviceability, and product availability across competitors at any time in their procurement cycle. In short, for the computer storage industry, better tasting milk. Better tasting milk equals a fundamentally larger market for all the manufacturers to share; more profitability, and more jobs.

The vice chairman of the SNIA carries the dubious role of attempting to get the volunteers from these competing manufacturers working together efficiently (to make better tasting milk) and to "back-up" our Chairman, Paul Borrill. In summary, the Al Gore of the SNIA.

During the past year the SNIA has evolved enormously in its efficiency, controls, and productivity toward this vision. This evolution has been driven by:

* Retaining full time executives for the organization to aid in "execution"

* Casting each board-of-director member into carrying direct functional responsibilities

* Using Board-of-Director meetings as working forums to drive organization progress

* Creating a formal set of living Policies and Procedures that:

* Precisely define our Mission and Vision

* Sets timelines and deliverables for annual planning

* Assigns functional responsibilities to board members

* Defines voting and election rules

* Establishes membership classes and related rights for each class

* Create and monitor working committees

* Defines responsibilities for and obligations to full time staff

* Enforces a process for the review and approval of technical standards and PR materials

* Casts Guidelines for Intellectual Property and Antitrust

The SNIA is a growing and vibrant organization of tremendous potential, as the task of building interoperable Storage Networks is both enormous in engineering scope and customer value. Participating in the leadership, the SNIA has been an excellent investment of energy in a highly entrepreneurial environment that has yielded invaluable industry contacts. I believe in SNIA's purpose and cherish the investment of my energy. I encourage everyone in the storage industry to actively participate in its progress. In two years from its inception, the SNIA has evolved to become the center of the network storage industry. With increased support, the SNIA will define and promote the next "open" technological step for the storage industry.

Roger Reich is the vice chairman of the Storage Networking Industry Association (Mountain view, CA).